DVD/Blu-Ray marketing practices......

I dunno who else is paying attention but the retail marketing practices are pretty disgusting these days.

Standard DVD prices are being slashed like crazy lately(not just for Christmas but in general too). Now, this may seem like a great thing, but here is the bigger picture. Blu Ray players are also coming way down in price. So basically what is happening is, these companies want people to buy up as many standard DVDs as possible, and then go out and buy a new affordable blu-ray player, so they can go ahead and re-buy everything on blu-ray, partaking in what many refer to as "double-dipping"

On top of that, it seems like most movies being released on blu-ray(besides new releases) are being released in bare-bones fashion.(No extra features, no special edition, just the theatrical cut) For example, I own the Terminator 2 Ultimate edition on standard dvd. This same version is not on blu-ray yet, however the bare-bones edition of T2 is on blu-ray. So what these companies want me to do, is go run out and buy the bare bone version on blu-ray NOW, and then six months from now, they will transfer the Ultimate edition to blu-ray. I am sorry but all these special/limited/collectors/directors cuts should get automatic transfers. There is no reason other then corporate greed to be releasing bare bone version of movies on blu-ray when we all know it is quite easy to transfer any version that is currently out on standard dvd, into high def.

My advice to anyone looking to upgrade to blu-ray, is to stop buying DVDs altogether until you either:

A) Upgrade to HD

B) Never plan on upgrading until that is all that is available

Otherwise you are going to fall into the trap of buying all these DVDs at a cheap price, and then want to buy the blu ray versions later.